...

” I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Spelling

Spelling

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word. 

Margaret Atwood

Blackened

On the edge of the sea
so deep and blue
Like everything and nothing
like your words and how I read them
Like your wandering eyes,
away from me that is,
until I'm adorned
Adorned in extravagance
then I'm "beautiful"
I found you in the darkness
and that's where we stayed
Stuck in the shadows of after midnight,
tangled up in each other not wanting to let go
Or so it felt
The soft light of morning touched my skin
and now I'm toxic
So until the sun sets again...

space

Like the sky,
or my bed
Space between
you and me
Sometimes so close
and touching
Sometimes I
do not know
where you are
Press yourself against me
and stay,
finally stay.

burned

What a peculiar thing
it is to feel
To brush up against
shards of stuff that
hurts much more than
glass
Then sanded off
by warm silk
Smoothed in all
the right places
What a peculiar thing
it is to feel
a burn that is cold
Smoldering on inside
with only one extinguisher
Why are my hands
always in the fire.

true

Never judge a day by the weather

The best things in life aren't things

Tell the truth - there's less to remember

Speak softly and wear a loud shirt

Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses

He who dies with the most toys - still dies

Age is relative - when you're over the hill, you pick up speed

There are two ways to be rich - make more or desire less

Beauty is internal - looks mean nothing

No Rain - No Rainbows

Kimos Hawaiian rules

let it go - the

let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love



e. e cummings